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Lyons: Failure to report sex abuse not always obvious

Published: Saturday, April 6, 2013 at 5:35 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, April 6, 2013 at 5:35 p.m.

Florida's tough sexual abuse reporting law will clearly be a problem for prosecutors.

And maybe a bigger one than it needs to be.

There's no getting around that tough decisions have to be made about which Manatee County school system employees, if any, are to be charged with failure to report sexual abuse suspicions.

At least four administrators knew of allegations about Rod Frazier, an assistant football coach and parent liaison at Manatee High. None contacted police about suspicions that Frazier had groped a student, though a new state law makes it a felony to fail to report suspected sexual abuse of minors.

Bradenton police only got involved after a Herald-Tribune news story made the suspicions public.

But the strict reporting law is new, and it could be hard for prosecutors to decide and prove that educators had strong enough suspicions that they crossed a threshold where failure to call police became a felony.

One of the four is Debra Horne, the school system's internal investigator. Her inadequate interviews about Frazier's behavior with female students — she never talked to some of the students named as likely to know more — seem especially noteworthy.

But what if prosecutors decide this was likely just poor judgment and jumping to conclusions, and that Horne had no desire to avoid or hide uncomfortable facts? Is it still a felony to decide — wrongly or not — that there was no real basis for serious suspicion?

Maybe so. Maybe that's the whole point.

The demanding law was passed in the wake of the scandal at Penn State, where respected administrators grossly underreacted to strong evidence of sexual abuse of young boys at athletic department facilities. Penn State's horrific inaction made it clear that even respected and high-ranking administrators can be woefully and destructively stupid, or worse, in reacting to sexual abuse. It reminded us, again, that those who keep reports under the radar as abuse continues will always be full of excuses.

And so, we need to build fires under many administrators who otherwise still just won't report some uncomfortable allegations to police.

The new law also seeks to do away with the hesitation that might be expected from people who feel squeamish and uncertain about what to do and who to tell. The law aims to makes it simple: When in doubt, tell police or the Department of Children and Families. If you don't, you become an offender.

Too bad it can't really be that simple all the time. Some suspicions will still be too vague or flimsy to clearly justify calling cops. Did we really want to make every judgment call like that a felony?

Calling police can lead to real nightmares for innocent people, including possible victims. Being wrong is rarely harmless, either way. Yet the law does seem to demand that people bypass all judgment and report no matter what.

Arguably, that is necessary. With all the priests, pastors, parents and principals and others from whom we expected better judgment, we have heard a thousand justifications for cover-ups that let abusers keep abusing.

But it still might be more reasonable, fair, and just easier for prosecutors, if state law called for a lesser, misdemeanor charge when failure to report is based on reasonable argument that suspicions seemed to be baseless.

That wasn't so at Penn State, or in a hundred other examples where administrators knew better.

At Manatee High? I don't know enough yet. But though police reportedly recommended it, it is just hard to imagine an announcement that four administrators will be charged as felons.

<p>Florida's tough sexual abuse reporting law will clearly be a problem for prosecutors.</p><p>And maybe a bigger one than it needs to be.</p><p>There's no getting around that tough decisions have to be made about which Manatee County school system employees, if any, are to be charged with failure to report sexual abuse suspicions.</p><p>At least four administrators knew of allegations about Rod Frazier, an assistant football coach and parent liaison at Manatee High. None contacted police about suspicions that Frazier had groped a student, though a new state law makes it a felony to fail to report suspected sexual abuse of minors.</p><p>Bradenton police only got involved after a Herald-Tribune news story made the suspicions public.</p><p>But the strict reporting law is new, and it could be hard for prosecutors to decide and prove that educators had strong enough suspicions that they crossed a threshold where failure to call police became a felony.</p><p>One of the four is Debra Horne, the school system's internal investigator. Her inadequate interviews about Frazier's behavior with female students — she never talked to some of the students named as likely to know more — seem especially noteworthy.</p><p>But what if prosecutors decide this was likely just poor judgment and jumping to conclusions, and that Horne had no desire to avoid or hide uncomfortable facts? Is it still a felony to decide — wrongly or not — that there was no real basis for serious suspicion?</p><p>Maybe so. Maybe that's the whole point.</p><p>The demanding law was passed in the wake of the scandal at Penn State, where respected administrators grossly underreacted to strong evidence of sexual abuse of young boys at athletic department facilities. Penn State's horrific inaction made it clear that even respected and high-ranking administrators can be woefully and destructively stupid, or worse, in reacting to sexual abuse. It reminded us, again, that those who keep reports under the radar as abuse continues will always be full of excuses.</p><p>And so, we need to build fires under many administrators who otherwise still just won't report some uncomfortable allegations to police.</p><p>The new law also seeks to do away with the hesitation that might be expected from people who feel squeamish and uncertain about what to do and who to tell. The law aims to makes it simple: When in doubt, tell police or the Department of Children and Families. If you don't, you become an offender.</p><p>Too bad it can't really be that simple all the time. Some suspicions will still be too vague or flimsy to clearly justify calling cops. Did we really want to make every judgment call like that a felony?</p><p>Calling police can lead to real nightmares for innocent people, including possible victims. Being wrong is rarely harmless, either way. Yet the law does seem to demand that people bypass all judgment and report no matter what.</p><p>Arguably, that is necessary. With all the priests, pastors, parents and principals and others from whom we expected better judgment, we have heard a thousand justifications for cover-ups that let abusers keep abusing.</p><p>But it still might be more reasonable, fair, and just easier for prosecutors, if state law called for a lesser, misdemeanor charge when failure to report is based on reasonable argument that suspicions seemed to be baseless.</p><p>That wasn't so at Penn State, or in a hundred other examples where administrators knew better.</p><p>At Manatee High? I don't know enough yet. But though police reportedly recommended it, it is just hard to imagine an announcement that four administrators will be charged as felons.</p>